Research Guides: Physics and Astronomy: Articles

Evaluating sources -- Peer review

Peer review means the article has been reviewed by several researchers who are familiar with the topic. Most articles that are not rejected have been required to make at least some changes before publication. Relying heavily on peer-reviewed journal articles is a standard way of getting better quality information in academic research.
Even with peer review, journal articles should be read critically. They’re never perfect and can be wrong in details or even as a whole.
Look for methodology sections of articles you’re scanning. You can also search on names of methods or instruments, in addition to subject terms.

TYPES OF ARTICLES

Primary Article (original research)
Reports the findings from researchers. The experiments scientists conduct will be reported in this type of article.

Review Article (secondary literature)
This type of article will summarize the research that has been reported in primary literature.

Interested in Physics journals? Not just the articles within them?

What journals should you be looking at? Which are most influential or prestigious? (Be skeptical of rankings though.)

Look at Scimago, Google Scholar, or Eigenfactor. We no longer subscribe to Journal Citation Reports. Many top journals show their impact factors on their splash page.

Also, and maybe better, do a few broad searches on your topic and take a closer look at the journals that come up among the results.

Video -- Accessing an electronic journal

Physics and Astronomy Article Databases

Search Databases to Find Articles

Google Scholar This link opens in a new window
Use Google Scholar through the library to be automatically linked to the full text of articles we own.

You should be able to find find articles from Physical Review, Scitation, Science Direct, IEEE, and other publishers by using Web of Science and Google Scholar and then linking to full text.

If you want to browse Physics and Astronomy journals, try these below. We will not necessarily have full text for all. And this will not include many physics journals in multidisciplinary packages.

Physical Review and PROLA (Physical Review Online Archive)
Indexes all American Physical Society's (APS) journal material published from 1893 up to current issues.

Scitation This link opens in a new window
Spring 2023 -- We're about to regain full access to AIP journals.
Provides access to journals covering physics, chemistry, geosciences, engineering, acoustics, and other science and technology content.

IEEE Xplore
About 200 journals. This does not include access to conference proceedings, ebooks, and other. Just journals.
SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
The major source for information in astronomy, astrophysics, and physics. ADS searches three databases: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Physics, and arXiv e-prints. The databases cover journals, conference proceedings, many Observatory reports and newsletters, many NASA reports, and PhD theses. Also includes full-text scans of astronomical literature which can be browsed through the browse interface.
arXiv.org
Not necessarily peer-reviewed versions. Searchable archive for preprints in the fields of physics, mathematics, and computer science since 1991. Maintained by Cornell University.

More Databases

ScienceDirect This link opens in a new window
ScienceDirect is only one publisher. It is a BIG one, so it is often a worthwhile place to search.
Full text access to more than 1,200 journals from the Elsevier Science journal collection, and indexing for 1,300 more.
SciFinder Scholar This link opens in a new window
Go to this page for "New user registration. "https://library.appstate.edu/find-resources/databases/scifinder-scholar
Covers all areas of chemistry, including organic, inorganic, biochemistry, applied chemistry, and chemical engineering, including abstracts from more than 10,000 journals and the CAS Registry.

Atomic Spectra Database
This free database contains "critically evaluated NIST data for radiative transitions and energy levels in atoms and atomic ions. Data are included for observed transitions of 99 elements and energy levels of 57 elements. ASD contains data on about 950 spectra from about 0.4 Å to 500 µm, with about 75,000 energy levels and 110,000 lines, 44,000 of which have transition probabilities."
CDS - CERN Document Server
Covers preprints, articles, books, proceedings, presentations, talks, journals, reports, multimedia and outreach in particle physics. Many of the documents are full-text.
Energy Citation Databases (ECD)
ECD includes over 140,000 full text documents on chemistry, physics, engineering, climatalogy, and mathematics. Citations and documents are made publicly available by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).
SPIRES-HEP
Run by the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center(SLAC) since the late 1960's as a database of particle physics literature.
Science Conference Proceedings Portal (U.S. Department of Energy)
This is a free distributed portal that provides access to science and technology conference proceedings and papers from nineteen professional societies plus a number of national labs. Also included are over 500,000 proceedings and papers indexed in the Energy Citations Database covering 1948 to the present. Proceedings and papers from scientific meetings can be found in these fields, among others: particle physics, nuclear physics, chemistry, petroleum, aeronautics and astronautics, meteorolog

ACM Digital Library This link opens in a new window
Coverage of information science, information technology, and computer science from the Association for Computing Machinery.

University Libraries Research Guides

Physics and Astronomy: Articles

Science Librarian